


bro talks

by katrinawritesthings



Category: SHINee
Genre: Agender, Aromantic, Asexual, Brotp, F/M, Fluf, M/M, Multi, NB, Nonbinary, Polyamory, taemplants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-10-22 00:53:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10686426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katrinawritesthings/pseuds/katrinawritesthings
Summary: me: im gonan write a taekeyme: writes 1822 words of jong2min talking about dogs and then gender shit“Stop projecting your own shit onto animals,” Minho says then.“No,” Jonghyun mumbles back, small and petulant. “Did I tell you how my Li’l Lizard Friend is a lesbian?”tumblr





	bro talks

The near silence of the two of them playing some decent co-op game on the floor of Minho’s basement is broken when Jonghyun opens his mouth to speak:

“Do you think, like… dogs, like, know that they're dogs?”

There’s another long few moments after that where Taemin doesn’t reply because he’s busy trying to revive Jonghyun’s ass from dying for the sixth time this level.

“...What?” he asks after Jonghyun is up again. Jonghyun doesn’t reply immediately, probably due to the fact that he just got hit three times in five seconds and needs Taemin to revive him again. Taemin decides to kind of just leave him there on the floor to kill some of the enemies around before he tries to help him again.

“Like,” Jonghyun says, lazily tapping the help button on his controller to make his character shout at Taemin’s. “Like, do you think, a dog sees another dog, like, if a dachshund saw a german shepherd, would that dog, like, immediately know that the shepherd was also a dog? Like, would they know that they were the same?”

“I mean,” Taemin says. He clears out the area of all enemies and heads back to revive Jonghyun again. “I dunno.”

“Mmm,” Jonghyun hums, and follows behind Taemin a safe distance away from anything that might ambush him. Taemin makes a shrug noise back without actually shrugging. They continue through the level, Taemin killing most of everything and Jonghyun kind of throwing a few badly-aimed shots out every now and again.

“Isn’t that what the ass sniffing is for?” Minho asks after a while. Taemin glances up; he forgot Minho was on the couch watching them play. He thought he was upstairs and, like, actually hosting the party he threw. Jonghyun glances up too; he must have also forgotten. Taemin watches him hesitate for a moment out of the corner of his eye and rolls his eyes when Jonghyun just hands the controller to him. The second character on screen suddenly gets infinitely better than before as Minho takes over.

“The ass sniffing is for like… everything,” Jonghyun mumbles as he curls his knees up and hugs them. “Chemicals and genitals and health and sh--whatnot.” Taemin snorts lightly at his pun save. “I meant, like, before the ass sniffing happens,” Jonghyun says. “Do they know there’s another dog before that?” Minho hums in reply, not unlike the last two hums to enter the room. Taemin readjusts his position against the couch now that he doesn’t have to focus so much on playing a two-player game largely by himself.

“I feel like they would,” he says, letting his head loll back against the seat of the couch. His eyes are almost closed with how angled his head is, but he can see enough of the screen still to not die. “Like… cats know other cats are cats.” He saw a video the other day of like, seven different big cats all playing together. They knew they were the same.

“Okay, but,” Jonghyun says. “Dog breeds are way more varied than cat breeds.”

“Mmm,” Taemin hums. That is true. Cats are pretty consistent across the board. Dogs are all over the place.

“Do you think dogs know that a cat is a cat?” Minho asks. Taemin tilts his head even farther back to give him a slow, confused blink.

“What,” he asks. That didn’t even make sense. Minho shrugs, and goes completely off the path in the game. Taemin follows just for the fuck of it and hums again when it leads to a secret area with extra loot. Nice.

“Like,” Minho mumbles. “Does a dog see a cat and know that it’s different, or does it think that it’s just another kind of dog?” He leads Taemin back to the game path and throws a bomb right into a cluster of enemies before they even spawn. Taemin feels like it takes the fun out of a game to have everything memorized like this, but also, he can’t say he doesn’t like the simplicity.

“I feel like a dog would know that a cat is different,” Jonghyun says. “Like. They know that birds are different. And lizards, and fish, and everything.” He yawns into his knees and runs his fingers through his pink hair. “Maybe not wolves,” he mumbles. “But cats are different enough, I think.”

“I don’t know,” Taemin sighs. “You hear stories about animals thinking they’re other animals all the time.” Just yesterday he read a whole little article list of them. “Like… that cow that thinks she’s a dog,” he says. What’s the deal with her then.

“Obviously she was otherkin,” Jonghyun says. “And I do not shame her for striving to become more like her kintype.” There’s silence after his words as Taemin and Minho both concentrate on defeating the boss of the level. Taemin only dies once, and only because he fucked up a jump. Minho has him revived in a heartbeat and they finish the level without any other problems.

“Stop projecting your own shit onto animals,” Minho says then.

“No,” Jonghyun mumbles back, small and petulant. “Did I tell you how my Li’l Lizard Friend is a lesbian?”

“I thought she was pan,” Taemin frowns. He distinctly remembers Jonghyun knitting her a tiny little yellow pink and blue hat. It was adorable. Jonghyun hums, wiggling his hand into Taemin’s lap to take the controller. He skips all of the mission status menus and starts the next one, pushing it gently back into Taemin’s hands after. Taemin snorts and waits for Minho to ready his character before he begins.

“She was,” Jonghyun says. “But she’s kind of realized, like. With her genderfluidity, her sexuality changes with her gender. And when she’s a full lady, she’s only into other ladies. So when she’s a girl, she’s a lesbian. And kind of demi. And when she’s not, she’s pan. But calling herself pan when she’s a girl doesn’t feel right even though technically she is still capable of being attracted to everyone. So she’s pan and lesbian and kind of ace, but it depends on her gender. She thinks. And that’s just for sexual attraction, not romantic.”

“Oh,” Taemin says.

“You know,” Minho mumbles. “You could just, say, like, this is you. Like, we’re talking about you. You can say that.”

“I could, yeah,” Jonghyun mumbles back, in a tone that says he’s not going to.

“I respect your lizard’s genders and orientations,” Taemin says as he guides his character to creep beside Minho’s. He hates stealth missions. Things would be much simpler if he could just kill everything and be done with it.

“Same,” Minho says.

“Thanks,” Jonghyun replies, and after a beat, speaks again: “Speaking of gender. Can you two, like,” he says. “Call me ‘she’ and everything, right now, by the way?”

“Yeah,” Taemin shrugs, Minho murmuring a “sure” right after. He kind of figured that’s where Junghee was headed anyway. She mumbles another thanks, and then it’s quiet again for another long few minutes where Taemin laments the fact that the game literally will not allow him to play the way he wants to. Minho starts some bonus hacking mini game and Taemin sighs, closing his eyes for a minute. It’s getting late, he thinks. Almost one in the morning.

“My cactus is still super phallo and super aro and super poly,” he mumbles to the ceiling. “In case you were wondering.” He’s making a cute ceramic aro-striped flowerpot and everything. The clay is drying in the studio right now.

“Neato,” Minho hums. Taemin watches the screen as he works through the game. He wonders if Minho is so good because he’s played it a million times or because he just has a talent for this sort of thing. He also wonders when Minho is going to get over his bullshit about projecting and let Junghee knit him an agender-striped snake sweater. It’s not like his little garter snake isn’t already literally the flag colors. He’s not fooling anyone with his “they were the easiest to feed” schtick. He sighs slowly as he works his way through the game with Minho. He’s kind of bored, but not in a bad way. In a content, doing-nothing-with-your-friends kind of way. It’s a long, long time that they sit together like that, Taemin and Minho finishing the next few missions and Junghee watching in silence. At least half an hour, maybe a full one, goes by before there’s another noise of communication.

It’s from Junghee, and it’s a low groan, a soft noise that fades out into a whine, a pout. Taemin glances at her to see her with her face in her hands, palms pressing into her eyes as she makes another unhappy noise.

“You okay?” Minho asks. His fingers don’t stop moving on the controller, but Taemin can hear the concern in his voice still. Junghee groans again, grumbles and sighs and sifts her fingers through her hair to tug gently.

“I feel like I’m gonna doze off for a little bit,” she says. “And I don’t want to do it in this position because it’ll hurt my neck. But I know if I move to lie down or something it’ll ruin my whole… relaxed… aesthetic… thing. And that’ll just give the insomnia an extra excuse to fuck me over.” She sighs again and lets her arms fall to her sides. Taemin wants to rub her shoulder sympathetically, but he knows she gets uncomfortable from being touched by dudes when she’s not a dude at the moment. He’s too tired to lift his arm anyway.

“You should sleep,” Minho tells her gently. “You know you probably won’t stay asleep for long anyway. You should get what you can.” Taemin nods at his words. That’s true. A few minutes on and off won’t be enough for a stiff neck. Junghee hums again, though, uncertain, so Minho pauses the game to pet gently through her hair.

“Sleep,” he says. “When you wake again up I’ll take you up to my room and you can spend the night so you don’t get unrelaxed completely by driving home. I have to start kicking people out soon anyway.”

“Mmmm,” Junghee says. “Okay.” She nuzzles just slightly into Minho’s hand before her eyes slide shut. Taemin watches her for a few seconds before he turns his head to look up at Minho.

“Can I sleep on your couch?” he asks quietly. “I don’t wanna… walk home. This late.” Too dark, too far, too scary. He was gonna get a ride from Jinki but he already left to take Kibum’s drunk ass home. Minho nods easily and Taemin gives him a grateful smile back. He’ll grab an extra blanket from the closet later when the other two are heading to bed themselves. For now, he picks up his controller again to finish the level with Minho, Junghee breathing softly at his side.


End file.
